Robots in the classroom “so cool”
ROBOTICS experts of the future might be attending Dubbo Public School right now, but the driver behind exposing them to the possibilities of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects is the school’s new focus involving kindergarten up to Year 6.
Thanks to a Charles Sturt University community and university partnerships grant, the school recently purchased educational and programmable Ozobots and Dash Robots which use simple but increasingly complex methods for programming and operating them.
The robots have become a highlight of visits to each classroom by the new Science/stem teacher Tamara Shepherd.
“This is my sixth year as a teacher, but previous to that I did a science degree so it came about that the school could use that expertise,” she told Dubbo Photo News.
“This year my role has specifically been as Science/stem coordinator and it’s the first time we’ve done that at the school. We needed to update some of our equipment and so applied for the grant.”
The idea of having a dedicated Science/stem teacher is both practical and addresses skill needs of the future.
“Sometimes as a classroom teacher there’s a lot of numeracy and literacy as the main focus and having then the resources to do Science properly can be tricky, so by having one person controlling this field has made it really work,” Mrs Shepherd said.
During Dubbo Photo News’ visit to the school students were completely engaged in the novelty of drawing colour-coded pathways on a map of the school grounds, which the Ozobots could ‘sense’ and follow instructions about direction and speed.
“You can also do block codes like Tinker and Scratch and bluetooth the instructions to Ozobots,” Mrs Shepherd said.
One student summed up their view of the experience by saying: “I reckon they’re so cool.” DUBBO PHOTO NEWS. DUBBO residents are being asked to get on board an eight-week weight-loss campaign during Spring to reverse a concerning obesity trend in the region.
Dubbo is one of the most overweight areas with approximately 80 per cent either overweight or obese. The “Downsizing Dubbo” campaign will attempt to address the epidemic.
Dubbo Regional mayor Ben Shields is one of the high-profile people to join up.
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